car crash update and advice needed please!!

backfoot

pwllbwdr wrote: »

On your logic - seeing the "straight arrow" as meaning go around the roundabout, nobody from any of the lanes can turn onto the A38 at all. Ever.

I was talking about the middle lane, which has a straight ahead and a right arrow.

As I have just said, and said all along,I think the other driver was in the wrong lane. I also think the OP was.

bikingbarney

will this photo help at all??



you will just have to imagine the new road markings onto it.... i.e the left hand arrows are now straight ahead arrows and the straight ahead arrows are right turn arrows.

Wig

backfoot wrote: »

Admittedly, the road lines have changed a lot since I travelled this way regularly, and I do agree now that the left hand lane does guide you off down the A38N.

How could you ever have missed it before?

What I don't like about your case, is that I don't think the middle lane, is part of the A38N as you describe. In fact, I think it more part of the roundabout route.

The lane arrows and lane dividers make it so that the middle lane is given the option of going straight (exit) or going right (around). Given that lane 1 is directed to exit, and there are 2 lanes on the exit, lane 1 gets lane 1 and lane 2 gets lane 2........ simples

What would be useful, would be to get a photo from the point where that guy is standing, showing what the view was for him ahead.I think a lot of his evidence,will be based on that position.I am sure that will give you either comfort or concern about the strength of his case.

Looking straight ahead he sees clearly a line of lane dividers just inches to the right of his front right wheel and continuing ahead to the exit lane 1

Wig

This is unbelievable, it really is.

They used to put turn left arrows on roundabouts and straight ahead arrows and people ( who are frankly idiots who should not have a driving license) turn left into "no entry" "entrances onto the roundabout" Unbelievable. So they change the guidance to say "don't use left turn arrows, because of those muppets who go the wrong way down the motorways, from now on we'll use straight ahead arrows for exits and right turn arrows to indicate a lane for continuing around the roundabout to the right. Surely no-one is going to make a mistake now."

Then you get muppets who can't make a logical distinction on a roundabout about what must be the difference between a straight ahead arrow and a right turn arrow! These people should not be driving.

dacouch

Barney, it's probably best to remove the reg plates from your photo

backfoot

Wig wrote: »

Then you get muppets who can't make a logical distinction on a roundabout about what must be the difference between a straight ahead arrow and a right turn arrow! These people should not be driving.

So in a middle lane on a roundabout where there is both the straight ahead arrow and a right turn arrow combined,you would exit left a further 100 yards ahead?

It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights.:D

backfoot

bikingbarney wrote: »

will this photo help at all??



you will just have to imagine the new road markings onto it.... i.e the left hand arrows are now straight ahead arrows and the straight ahead arrows are right turn arrows.

Yes, now get down to street level view and position the view from as near as you can to the black Subaru. Better still take your own phot from this position. Then you have the exact view the other driver had. It may well strengthen your case.

Wig

dacouch wrote: »

Barney, it's probably best to remove the reg plates from your photo

I agree,


I got this idea from hothothot on the other thread but here is my version of straight on & right turn arrows on a roundabout

The green lane is instructed to go straight on
The red lane is instructed to turn right so must turn right at each set of lights
The blue lane can do both.

Doozergirl

backfoot wrote: »

I am talking of the actual A38N to Rubery. It is a dual carriageway.
If as the OP has said in his evidence he wanted to get past the other driver,it was much safer for him to have done so on that long stretch of dual carriageway.He has said he was completely familiar with the route.

This is one of the difficulties for the OP. He feels he was completely entitled to leave the exit from the middle lane because the road markings encourage it. Equally,for someone who doesn't know the area, the straight ahead arrow gives an ambiguous message in this case. The other driver obviously felt so and many others have said it was better with a left turn only arrow (as it was before).

Both drivers owed a duty of care and having used this road many times, I would not have attempted the manouvre that the OP did. Did the OP signal? If he did, then the other driver may have been warned.If he didn't then,he could equally assume that the OP was heading on further round the island from that middle lane.

Negligence will be attributed on a number of factors not just road markings.

He wasn't overtaking anyone! They were moving from a standing start in two lanes that allowed both vehicles to bear left. I don't see what 'attempted manouvre' you are even talking about - essentially continuing in a lane that entitles you to do so? Nothing dodgy about except for the risk of someone in lane A changing lanes without looking properly - which is what happened to the OP, not what the OP did!

If you know it, then please drive it. This case does interest me as I think the OP is being done an injustice by his insurers and drove it again today and yesterday looking at the road and thinking about it. Tell me how comfortable and confident you'd feel crossing from lane A over towards Bromsgrove instead of Rubery without looking or assuming that you might need to give way to people in the two lanes to the right of you?

I will happily take the calculated risk of using lane B and following the arrows in the direction it points and allows me to. And I do - I'm not waiting behind four cars and blocking the M5 sliproad when lane B is free. However, if I were accidentally in lane A and wanted to go to Bromsgrove, I'd have either given way to everyone on my right or more likely, have driven up the A38(N) and come back down and tried again. Whilst the straight on markings might be 'ambiguous' (I don't think they are really) the actual positioning of your car in the road and the streetscene ahead when you are sat at the lights just screams that you should be going North.

The fact that the A38(N) goes on for miles without the opportunity to turn round I think might make people more likely to take a silly risk and try and get round but that doesn't make it the OP's fault, even on a 50/50 I don't think.

Doozergirl

Wig wrote: »

I agree,


I got this idea from hothothot on the other thread but here is my version of straight on & right turn arrows on a roundabout

The green lane is instructed to go straight on
The red lane is instructed to turn right so must turn right at each set of lights
The blue lane can do both.

I thought you were drunk at first with all the lines! but I totally get it. Fact is, whilst people might manouvre to the right whilst going round a roundabout, no one purposely changes lane to the right unless they positioned themselves wrongly in the first place. You gradually move left. I am equally frustrated by people who think 'straight on' is round the roundabout and 'right' means take a right hand exit that doesn't even exist or change lanes infinitely to the right on a spiralling roundabout. It just makes sense that straight on means exit here, right means carry on round.

A previous point made by someone else about the accident possibly happening anyway, even if the OP were heading to A38(S) was a really good point.

OP I also agree that it would probably be a good idea to get some kind of statement from Worcestershire Highways about what they meant when they designed it (pretty clear to at least four of us!)

I went to County Court in Redditch as a witness for someone where the insurance decision was 50/50 in an accident on a country lane. The person who was clearly in the wrong decided to sue the guy I was supporting as a witness, for his excess. Common sense prevailed; between us - including the guy whose fault it was(!) - showed that it was indeed his fault. It's easy to speak when you speak the truth; the other guy tied himself in knots; I can't tell you the amount of rubbish he came out with. Judges aren't stupid and it became more and more obvious who was right - if you can put forward enough evidence then you can win this. If you have to compile that evidence yourself, do it! Ultimately, your insurer doesn't really care about protecting your interests, they do it day in, day out and if it isn't immediately clear, they won't work all that hard to prove it wasn't your fault. In the case I saw, it was an insurance company solicitor that represented the guy I supported and the whole thing ended up being overturned and it became no fault on his part. But to be frank, she didn't really know what she was talking about - she turned up on the morning completely clueless. I had to keep whispering to her to counteract some of the claims being made by the other driver for her to cross-question him . We had to prove fault on a narrow country lane which I understand is also often 50/50, but you have the road markings clearly in your favour, IMO. She was incredibly useful in that she counterclaimed and I understand she even ended up getting the 50/50 decision overturned into a no-fault for the good guy